Let's turn to John chapter 6.
I have a rather lengthy text to read. I want to begin in verse
25 and I want to read down to verse 58. It says in verse 25, John 6,
25, it says, And when they had found the Lord Jesus on the other
side of the sea, they said unto him, Rabbi, when camest thou
hither? Jesus answered them, and he said,
Verily, verily, I say unto you, you seek me not because you saw
the miracle, but because you did eat of the loaves and were
filled. Labor not, work not for the meat
which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting
life, which the Son of Man shall give unto you. For him hath God
the Father sealed. Then said they unto him, What
shall we do, that we might work the works of God? Jesus answered,
and he said unto them, This is the work of God, that you believe
on him whom he hath sent. And they said therefore unto
him, What sign showest thou then, that we may see and believe thee?
What does thou work? Our fathers did eat manna in
the desert. As it's written, Moses gave them
bread from heaven to eat. Then Jesus said unto them, Verily,
verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from
heaven, but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he which
cometh down from heaven and giveth life unto the world. Then said
they unto him, Lord evermore give us this bread. And Jesus
said unto them, I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me
shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. But I said unto you that you
also have seen me and believe not. All that the Father giveth
me shall come to me, And him that cometh to me, I will let
no wise cast out. For I came down from heaven,
not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. And this is the Father's will
which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me, I shall
lose nothing, but shall raise it up again at the last day.
And this is the will of him that sent me, that everyone which
seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting
life, and I will raise him up at the last day." The Jews then
murmured at him, because he said, I am the bread which came down
from heaven. And they said, Is not this Jesus,
the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How is it
then that he says, I came down from heaven? Jesus therefore
answered and said unto them, Murmur not among yourselves,
No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me
draw him, and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written
in the prophets, they shall be all taught of God. Every man,
therefore, that hath heard and hath learned of the Father cometh
unto me. Not that any man hath seen the
Father, save he which is of God, he hath seen the Father, Verily,
verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me hath everlasting
life. I am that bread of life. Your
fathers did eat man in the wilderness and are dead. This is the bread
which cometh down from heaven that a man may eat thereof and
not die. I am the living bread which came
down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread,
he shall live forever. And the bread that I will give
is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." The
Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give
us his flesh to eat? Then Jesus said unto them, Verily,
verily, I say unto you, Except you eat the flesh of the Son
of Man, and drink his blood, You have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh
my blood hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last
day. For my flesh is meat indeed,
and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh
my blood dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the living Father
hath sent me, and I live by the Father, So he that eateth me,
even he shall live by me. This is that bread which came
down from heaven, not as your fathers did eat manna and are
dead. He that eateth of this bread shall live forever." Now,
I want to try to preach to your heart today, rather than preaching
to the paper. I want to pull up the chair beside
your deathbed, you that are dying without Christ right now. I want
to pull up the chair beside your deathbed and I want to talk to
you and tell you what I know. I don't need notes for that.
I know what I know. And I want to tell you what I
know. And I want you to listen to me and I pray God will give
you a heart to understand and believe what I'm going to tell
you. First of all, I want to talk to you about the bread that
perishes. Our Lord said there in verse 28 and verse 29, or
in verse 26-27, He told them there, He said, you're not seeking
Me for life, you're seeking Me because you just want some temporal
earthly bread. And He said, don't work for that
bread that perishes. Labor for the bread that endures
to life everlasting. Worldly bread. Some of y'all
are young and you're trying to think of ways that you can make
a living and get out and make your mark in the world and all
this stuff. You can make your mark in this world to the point
this world thinks you are the greatest thing that ever walked
on the planet. If you don't have Christ, it's
worthless. It's all worthless. I thought
that way. I was a believer and thought,
you know, I thought I could go to Nashville, Tennessee and write
songs for a living, and that would be no different than any
other job. And faithful men told me, they said, you're not going
to be able to do that and serve the Lord. You're going to be
in the fast lane before you know you're in the fast lane. Oh,
they don't know what they're talking about. I can do that.
It's just a job like any other job. And I went up there and
I did it and I got a staff writing job and I've seen my name in
Billboard magazine. I've seen my name in Country
Weekly and seen a gold record hung on my wall and all that
stuff. This year it's 80 songs, next
year it's 100 songs, next year it's 120 songs. When you get
on this world's treadmill, it starts out at a certain pace
and it increases. And it gets steeper. And it increases. And it gets steeper. And it increases.
And next thing you know, you're running, giving it everything
you can just to try to stay on the treadmill. You're never satisfied. You're never satisfied by it.
I found that after a while, I was sitting in a church service,
and now I'm thinking about songs seven days a week. I was sitting
in a church service, listening to the preacher preach, trying
to find a song idea. Isn't that sad? And thank God,
He let me fall on my face and showed me worldly bread is just
bread that perishes. Now, I've used just songwriting
for an example. It doesn't matter what you do
in this world. If you get consumed in this world with this worldly
bread, you're chasing after mold, molded, stale bread that not
only is not any good to eat, it'll make you, it'll poison
you and you'll perish. And then bread, the bread of
riches. You know, I said this to you,
there's two things scripture uses that shows that is the most
evil of all and it is earthly riches and self-righteous works. Because those two things we think
are salvation. We got the money, we think we
got, well, at least we can make it for a little while longer.
You go home and eat some of that money. You can't eat it. It won't give you life. It'll
give you some temporary worldly bread. It'll give you some temporary
poison. But it won't, it will not save
you. It'll make you think you have
salvation in mammon when you don't have salvation in Christ.
And you need it. Because you depend on that too
much. Look over at James chapter 2. I'm sorry, James chapter 4. Here's the man that heaps up
his riches. Doesn't put them in circulation, doesn't help
people, just hoards them up because he thinks that's going to somehow
put his nest on high and put his family's nest on high. This
is what God says about it. James 5, verse 1, Go to now,
you rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come
upon you. Your riches are corrupted, your garments are moth-eaten,
your gold and your silver is cankered, and the rest of them
should be a witness against you. You get the picture here? There's
these old garments, and this is a miser. These old garments
are so old they're moth-eaten, because he don't want to spend
any money on anything new. That money's become his God.
His money's hoarded up now and it's rusted and it's cankered
and it's just old moldy. I used to, my first job was checking
groceries at a grocery store. And there'd be fellows that come
through there, old fellows come through there and pay for something.
And that money looked like, ugh, you didn't even want to touch
it. It looked like it had been just molded over. It had been
in an attic or in a basement somewhere so long. Old molded
money, cankered money. He said, all that is going to
be a witness against you. All them Benjamins, even the
Lincolns, they're going to all be talking in glory and saying,
he wouldn't spend anything. He thought I was his God. He
hoarded up this money. And it says, and it'll eat your
flesh like it was fire. You've heaped treasure together
for the last days. Behold, the hire of the laborers,
their pay, who've reaped down your fields, which is of you
kept back by fraud, it cries. God hears it. And the cries of
them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of
Sabaoth. That's the Lord who controls everything. You've lived
in pleasure on the earth and been wanton. You've nourished
your hearts. Just fatten them for the slaughter.
Fatten them for the slaughter. You see, brethren, that what
I'm saying, riches, that won't save you. God said you can't
serve God and mammon. You can't have these two masters.
You're going to serve one and hate the other, or serve the
other and hate the other one, but you can't serve them both.
You've got to have one master, one master. And then free will
works religion. Free will works religion. This
is bread that perishes. He said there in verse 28, they
said, what shall we do that we might work the works of God? They heard him say, labor not
for the meat that perishes, but labor for the bread that lasts
forever. And all they heard was work,
work, work. That's all they heard, work,
work. They didn't get the message he
was declaring to them. All they heard was work. So they
said, okay, what can we work that we might work the works
of God? He said, this is the work right here. This is the
work of God that you believe on Him whom he hath sent." What? You mean I have to stop working? That's right. You mean all I
get to do is just rest in Christ? You see, faith is the easiest
thing on this earth as far as what it requires of you. It requires
simply of you to rest in Christ. Trust Christ. But it's the most
difficult thing for a will worker because it takes all the work
out of his hand and requires him to do nothing. A man can
do anything and will do anything except nothing. A natural man. He'll do anything
you want him to do. He'll attempt it to save himself.
He'll walk across crushed glass with alcohol on his feet and
try to stack greased BBs if you want him to. Just don't tell
him to believe. These fellas walked away saying,
I don't know how we can do that. That's what Christ meant when
he said, eat my flesh and drink my blood. They walked away saying,
I don't know how we can do that. I don't know, that's hard. Believe?
Just believe? Just believe. Free will works
religion is everything else. If you're not born of Christ,
born of Him, and must be born of Him, born of the Spirit of
God, by His will, by His work, by His power, if you have to
do something to help Him, you trust in free will works religion.
If you have to be If you have to do something in order to help
establish a righteousness and a holiness to be accepted of
God, you have to go back to the law and there's something you
have to do to help out Christ to have that righteousness and
holiness that you need to enter God's glory. If that's what you
think, in any little regard, you trust altogether in free
will works religion. These folks out here in the world
are preaching total depravity and unconditional election, limited
atonement, irresistible grace, perseverance of the saints, and
it sounds like they're preaching the gospel. But they're taking
sinners back to Mount Sinai from Mount Calvary and telling them,
now this is what you're going to have to do though if you want
to be sanctified. That's nothing but free will works religion.
That disannulls anything they said that was true about Christ. It's damning. It's damning to
the souls of men. It's bread that perishes. Now
let me tell you about the bread from above, Christ the bread. In verse 32, Jesus said to them,
Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread
from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven.
For the bread of God is he which comes down from heaven and gives
life unto the world. Jesus said to them, I am the
bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never
hunger. He that believeth on me shall never thirst. Christ,
He says there, He says, Christ is the bread God the Father gave. He says there in verse 32, My
Father gave you the true bread from heaven. Christ is the bread
that God gave. God the Father gave His Son.
The gift of God, Scripture tells us, is eternal life. That's a
gift of God. You can't earn it. You can't
work for it. You can't obtain it of yourselves. And I can't. It's the gift of God. And this
gift is in His Son. Christ is eternal life. He's
the gift of God. And He's the righteousness of
God. Look over at Romans 10. Romans 10. He's the righteousness. That means He's wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification and redemption. He's all these things. Look at
Romans 10 here. Brethren verse 1 my heart's desire
and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved They're
not saved he's saying I pray they would be but they're not
For I bear them record they do have a zeal of God But it's all
ignorance. It's not according to knowledge
why for they being ignorant of God's righteousness Do you want
God's righteousness? If you know just think about
what that says if it's God's righteousness It can't come of
us in any shape, form or fashion. Then it would be God and our
righteousness. It'd be a mutual righteousness
worked out between us both. But it says here, this is God's
righteousness we're talking about. It comes all from God, worked
out all by God. And what is it? They go on about
to establish their own righteousness and have not submitted themselves
unto the righteousness of God for Christ. Christ is the end
of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes. When you come to Christ and believe
on Christ, this is not so of the unbeliever. These folks that
keep saying there's something else that they have to do, what
they're saying by that is, if you read that text, what I just
read you, and really hear what they're saying, what they're
saying is, I don't believe Christ. I don't believe Christ is all
my righteousness. I just don't. I believe I have
to do something to add to it. But everybody that believes,
when they come to Christ trusting He is all my righteousness, they've
come to the end of all their works. They've come to the end
for which the law was given. They've come to the end for which
these scriptures were given. They've come to the end for which
God put them on this earth. They've come to the end of the
law for righteousness. They've come to Christ now and
they're resting in Him. He's the righteousness of God.
That's why He's the bread, brethren. He's the bread. And the one that
is accepting us now, you think He's the bread God gave. He's
the righteousness God's provided. Now the one that we need to be
accepted by is God the Father. He's the one we need to be accepted
by. Now if He's given us the bread from heaven, He's given
the righteousness, He's given the life, He's given His Son
and said, now this is my beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased,
hear ye Him. Doesn't it stand to reason that
it's going to be a bad show when we show up saying, but I wanted
something else, I wanted to bring something else to you. That's
not going to work out real good, is it? When the one He provided
that He said He's going to glorify is the one we've rejected, that's
not going to stand very well with God, is it? Come with Christ
only. He's the bread from heaven. And
then look, Christ is the bread that came down from heaven. He
said there in verse 32, My Father gives you the true bread from
heaven, for the bread of God is He which came down from heaven
and gives life unto the world. He doesn't attempt to give life,
He gives it. Wherever His people are in this
world, He's going to give them life. Because He's the One. When He says He came down from
heaven, that means He's God. He's the Son of God. He's the
Son of God. To reject Christ is to reject
God. Everybody that rejects Christ
says, I've got to add something to this now. That's just total
rejection of Christ. And to do that is to reject God,
because He's God. He's the Son of God. He's the
Holy One. That's what it means. He came
down from heaven. It means He's the Holy One. There's only one,
and He's that one. He's the Holy One. That purpose
for which He was born of a virgin, of the Holy Spirit, is so that
He wouldn't be born of corrupt seed like you and me. You and
me are conceived in sin because the semen from which we were
conceived is corrupt. So our nature is corrupt. Our
DNA is corrupt. All we are is corrupt. So what
does a corrupt man do? Only what a corrupt man can do.
Sin. That's all we do. We don't sin
to become sinners. We sin because we are. And so
Christ came forth, not born of Adam. He came forth the Son of
God. The only begotten Son of God,
He came forth holy with no sin. There's only been two men in
the world that were holy without sin. That's Adam. He was created
that way by God. And the Son of God who came down
from heaven and took flesh willingly. It was the only two men that
came into this world holy without sin. Adam sinned in a perfect
environment with one commandment. He sinned against God. Now how
do you think you're going to do, trying to fulfill all the
commandments of God in a sinful environment with a sinful heart,
starting out at negative 100? How do you think you're going
to even get back to zero, much less the plus side? See what
I'm saying? But Christ came forth in a sin-cursed
garden, surrounded by temptation, the devil trying every way he
could to get him to sin, And Christ walked this earth without
sin, without spot, never a thought against God, never a thought
out of harmony with God. And so therefore, He was the
only one who was fit now that could go to that garden of Gethsemane
and present Himself to God the Father and say, I am the spotless,
sinless Lamb now. I'm a fit one to be made sin
for my people. And I'm willing to do it. This
is what he was praying. It was a faithful prayer he prayed
in the garden, but it was such a tremendous, unimaginable load
he was about to bear, that he was saying in that garden, Father,
if it's possible, let this cup pass from me. He said that for
my benefit and your benefit. He knew why he came. He says
in our text, I came to do the will of Him that sent me. Why
did He say, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me? Nevertheless,
not as I will, but as thou wilt. To show you and me there was
no other way. There was no other way. No possible
way for us to be saved other than through Christ and that
cross. No other way. Christ is the bread
of life because He put an end to death for His people. Look
at verse 35. He says there, I am the bread
of life. The bread of life. He that cometh
to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall
never thirst. He is the bread of life because
He put an end to death for His people. And He is eternal life
for His people. Scripture says the sting of death
is sin. Sin is what makes us die. Sin
is the venom that goes into our veins and poisons us and causes
us to die this slow death that we're dying every second that
we live. But Christ came forth and when
He went to that garden spotless, sinless, perfect, the spotless
Lamb of God, He went to that cross with one purpose. He went
to that cross to be made sin for His people. He hath made
Him sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. What all was included in that?
Was it just this? Was it just God saying, was it
just God saying, okay, now I'm going to just treat you like
you're guilty? And we know you're not, but I'm
going to just treat you like you're guilty. And I'm going to separate
myself from you here for a little while and then this thing will
be legally taken care of and it will all be settled. Christ is proving on that cross
that He is righteousness. He's proving on that cross He
is holiness. He's proving on that cross that
He is faithful to God. It's the faith of Christ that
justifies us. We read that this morning out of Galatians 2. He
was proving that. And the way he was showing that
was God made him to experience everything about our sin just
short of it corrupting his nature. It didn't corrupt him, but he
was touched with all the feelings of our infirmities. That means
so much more than the fact that when he walked this earth and
he saw somebody that was blind or somebody that was at some
kind of physical effect from sin that he was touched by it
and his heart went out to him. It means so much more than that.
He was made sin for us and he felt what sin was like. He was made to experience what
it was like to despise the shame of sin. To despise the shame of it. You know, we're sinners. And just being sinners, when
you get in trouble over something and you're caught, it's about
the only time we get ashamed about anything. And when you
get caught, you get ashamed about it. And that's you being a sinner. getting ashamed by it. And you
know how awful that feels to be ashamed of your sin. Imagine
what it was like for one who knew no sin to be made sin. Imagine what it was like, what
that shame was like. He was pained by the disgrace
that sin is to his father. That caused Him so much pain
on that cross, the disgrace that sin is to His Father. And there
He hangs one made sin. He suffered the physical and
the emotional pains of sin. That was inflicted on Him by
man's wicked hands. That shows you too how much sinful,
how sinful we are. You look to the cross, you see
what we did to God. Men will say, if I was there,
I wouldn't have done it. If you'd have been the ringleader, I would
have too. And He suffered that. Scripture
says His visage, His appearance was marred more than any man
ever. I guarantee you Hollywood hadn't
touched it yet. I'm of the opinion that he even
experienced something that had to do with the effects that sin
has on our physical bodies. I really think he did. I'm not
saying he was corrupted or he became a sinner or became unholy
in any way. He was not. I think I should
tell you, in the midst of all this, he showed how holy and
faithful he was that he never yet turned from God as he bore
this for his people. But you know, that centurion
sat there and looked at him, and something made that centurion
say, this was not of men, this was of God. Something's happened
here that's not like anything I've ever seen before. He knew that. He experienced
that. We've started taking this bread now and leaving it whole
when we pass it out. Because not only does it remind
us that we're one body with Christ, It also reminds you of that broken
body when you break it. And one thing that I really liked
about it last week, or last time it helped me, was I sat here
with my eyes down, my head down, my eyes closed, and as that bread
was being passed out, every time you broke it, it's just unleavened
bread, just flour and water, so it's brittle, it's hard. And
every time you broke a piece of it, it sounded like a whip
popping. And it made me think about His
broken body. Broken for me. And worse of anything
He suffered, He suffered the pain of eternal death, eternal
hell. I say, when did He do that? He
did it on the cross. He did it while He was alive.
He did it when God separated Himself from Him. And He cried
out, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? Thou art holy. That's why you're holy and I'm
a worm and no man. That's what hell will be for
you and I. It will be to be separated from
the glory of God and to know you're a worm and no man. And
it's a just thing that's happening. It's just. And yet all I had
to do was believe on Christ. If I'd have just trusted His
Son, He'd have saved me. Christ was made a curse for us.
He was made a curse for us. Men, I don't want to get into
these debates men get into and fuss and fight over what it meant
for Christ to be made sin. But you know, when I read He
was made a curse, that sounds even worse. He was made a curse. By being made that curse, He
redeemed His people. That precious blood was shed
because without the shedding of blood, without a life being
given to satisfy divine justice, there is no remission of sins.
And He suffered unto death. And He suffered unto that death
being obedient the whole time to the Father. See, there's a
positive side of the law and a negative side of the law. He
was fulfilling the negative side by bearing our sin and bearing
the justice we deserve so that he was paying the sin that his
people owed to justice. Paying for it, paying it, giving
it death. But at the same time, he was fulfilling all righteousness
because by that he was loving God and his brethren as himself
and he said that's the fulfillment of the law. And so He's altogether the righteousness
of His people. Now the Scripture says death
is dead for His people. He's eternal life. Romans 8 says,
What the law could not do, because it was weak through our flesh,
God sent His only begotten Son, and for sin He condemned sin. I love that. That's like an oxymoron. He condemned the condemnation. He made death die. by what He
did in His flesh. So that now the righteousness
of God is fulfilled in us. How? Through simply believing
on Christ. Isn't that wonderful? Isn't that wonderful? What I'm
telling to you, He is the bread of life. The bread of life. Who here wants to die today?
You want to die today? Everybody wants to live. Everybody
wants to live. I'm telling you about the one
who is eternal life. Life eternal, everlasting life. The one in whom if you have Him
dwelling in you, when you close your eyes in physical death,
nothing will change. You just be with Him in glory. And be like, you ever take a
heavy weight off you and think, man, I'm glad to get that off
of me. That's what death will be for God's people. I'm so glad
I got that old dead body off of me now. Woo! I'm alive now. I don't have that dead body on
me anymore. So lastly, let me come to this
point. This bread will do you no good except you believe on
Him. This bread will profit you nothing
except you believe on Christ. Verse 35, He says there, I am the bread of life, and he
that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth
on me shall never thirst." Sometimes the scripture calls faith coming
to Christ. He says there, he that cometh
to me shall never hunger. He is talking about coming to
Christ, believing on Christ. Then he calls it believing on
him. He that believeth on me shall never thirst. Later in
the chapter he calls it eating his flesh and drinking his blood. He is simply speaking of believing
on him. You know, the Lord has commanded
that we observe this ordinance, believers, those He's made to
be new creatures, righteous and holy in Him. He's commanded us
to partake of this table. It's not an option, just like
baptism is not an option. It's what we're to do. Well,
we're going to take this bread that symbolizes His broken body,
and we're going to take this wine that symbolizes his shed
blood. But, you know, it won't do me
any good if I know what that bread symbolizes, and I know
what that wine symbolizes, and I believe that's what it symbolizes,
but I won't eat it. If I don't eat it, I haven't
observed the table. If it doesn't become one with me, I haven't
observed the table. And so you see, by the same token,
our Lord says here, look over at Look at verse 53, Except you
eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, you have
no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh
my blood, hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the
last day. This is what he's talking about, about never hungry and
never thirst. Oh, you're going to get hungry and thirsty, naturally
speaking. But you will have eternal life. You'll never hunger and thirst
for eternal life. You'll never hunger and thirst
for righteousness. You'll never hunger and thirst for holiness.
That treadmill I told you the world's going to put you on,
religion puts you on the same treadmill. And you can never
rest. You're always hungry and you're
always thirsting because you never have righteousness. You
never have holiness. You're never certain that you
have it. Christ said, you believe on Me and you'll know for certain.
You got it. You won't hunger and thirst after
it anymore. You'll have Him. You'll have Him who's righteousness
and Him who's holiness. But this is only by believing
on Him. Now there's no doubt He's got
to give you life and He's got to give you faith. It's a gift
of God. You can't believe on Him. He said, no man comes to
me except my Father draws him. And He was telling those fellows
that were sitting there murmuring and making fun of Him. He was
telling them, you don't have to murmur. I know who you are.
I know who you are. You're not my sheep and you can't
come to me unless my Father draws you." And he was just flat out
telling them that's who they were. And they were too blind
and spiritually dead to even understand what he was telling
them. And so what did they do? They did just what he said they'd
do. They turned around and walked off. They said, we can't do that. That's too hard. So you've got
to be given life and faith and drawn by God. There's no doubt
about that. But this is also equally true. You have to believe
yourself personally. Mama can't do it. Daddy can't
do it for you. Your preacher can't do it for
you. The church can't do it for you. Nobody can do it for you.
You're going to have to believe on God yourself. You're going to have
to trust Christ yourself. All these vain excuses about,
well, what if I'm not an elect child of God? Well, I just don't
believe the same gospel my daddy believes. And I've listened to
this. You're just a dead rebel. You need to bow to God and believe
on Christ what you need. To hell with your excuses and
that's where your excuses are going to take you if God don't
interrupt your departure and do something about it. You need
to bow to Christ and believe Christ and rest in Christ. That's
what you need. Know in the terror of the Lord,
I'll try to persuade you. It would be a terrible thing
to fall into the hands of an angry God. And if you don't have
Christ, that's all that's awaiting you. Jonathan Edwards described
it like a man hanging by a spider web over the flames of hell.
That's all that's holding him there. And all it needs to do
is God just to cut that golden strand, and your life on this
earth is done, and you'll perish forever. And that's terrible. Our God
is a consuming fire. People don't know what hell is.
Being separated from the glory of God, that's hell. Because
our God is a consuming fire. When I eat, anytime I've had
a meal and I eat, when I sit down at a table and eat, I don't
eat just because I'm sitting there going, well, I need to
do this. If I don't do it, I'm going to die of famine. I don't
do that. I eat because I like it. I like
what I'm eating. I want to eat it. Enjoy it. See,
I don't want you just merely to believe on Christ because
you want to escape the fires of hell. Everybody wants to escape
hell. Everybody wants to go to heaven.
Who wouldn't? You'd have to be some kind of
demented idiot I want you to love the bread.
I want you to eat the bread because you love Christ. I want you to
want Him. That's what I pray God will give
you. A heart for Him. That's what His people want.
His people don't just believe and worship and come to church
services and go through all this sacrifice and this expense and
this trouble that you go through to do what you do simply because
you think, well, if I don't do this, I'm going to go to hell.
Well, if that's the only reason and that's your only motive,
that's a poor motive. God's people do what we do because
we want to partake of this bread. We want Christ. We want to hear
Him. We want to know more of Him. I pray God will give you
that. You that don't have it, I pray
He'll give it to you. And you that do, I pray He'll
increase it. Alright, brethren.